Manchester United suffered their first setbacks of an otherwise unblemished season in an eventful game at Stoke City, not only dropping their first points but losing two players to injury, plus Wayne Rooney, who never even travelled after picking up a hamstring injury in training.

"It is only a small thing, but it could keep him out for a week or two," Sir Alex Ferguson said. "Hamstrings are difficult, but it is not a serious one. He won't be available for next week and he could be out for a little longer." That is not what Fabio Capello was hoping to hear, because after United's upcoming games against Basel and Norwich in the next few days the following fixture for Rooney would be England's qualifier in Montenegro on Friday week, though Rooney himself has tweeted that he expects to be back in a matter of days.

United also lost Jonny Evans to an injury in the warm-up and Javier Hernández to a challenge from Jonathan Woodgate in the fourth minute. "Maybe a draw was a fair result, because making all the changes unsettled us a little bit," Ferguson said. "We had a nightmare training session on Friday, with Rooney, Evans and Michael Carrick all pulling up. Jonny thought he might be OK but in the warm-up he was no use so we had to make that change. Then we lost Chicharito and the penetration and speed he gives us, but we still had chances to win the match.

"There were two parts to it, they keep you under pressure and we dealt with it quite well. You expect if they are going to score it is going to be from a set piece, they have so many big lads in the team. In attack, though, we showed good play and maybe should have scored more than once."

Peter Crouch should certainly have scored more than once. He could have had a hat-trick, should have won the game for his new club and admitted as much afterwards, yet his performance did not wholly impress the United manager. "Crouch fouls all the time," Ferguson said. "He gets huffy but he jumps on top of defenders all the time, he has been doing that for years. Referees know that, and he maybe caught Phil Jones for the goal, but he is a definitely a handful in the air."